EP 23 Beliefs that Stay After the Abuse Ends - Part 2

In this episode, we’re talking about two more beliefs that stay long after emotional and psychological abuse ends. These are some that make you shrink, hide, and panic because you feel like you’re still the problem… even when you’re finally free.

You’re not broken. You were conditioned in an environment that trained you to believe you were.

This is a continued conversation about unlearning the identity you were given, understanding why healing takes time, and gently beginning to separate who you are from what you were taught to believe.

TRIGGER WARNING: ABUSE AND TRAUMA

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Transcript

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Welcome to Wildly Heard, a podcast about rising from psychological and emotional abuse and stepping into purpose, authenticity, and true identity. Each episode unpacks the journey of healing, from learning to recognize the scars of abuse to reclaiming your voice and embracing the truth of your identity. We'll explore what it means to walk free from fear and self-doubt and how to rebuild a life that is rooted in confidence, joy, and wholehearted living. This is what it means to be Wildly Her. Welcome to Wildly Her. I'm your host, Pamela Moore. And if you listened to the last episode, we started talking about the beliefs that stay with us after the abuse ends. And it's these ones that quietly follow us, linger around, and still kind of dictate a lot of our lives. And so today, what I want to do is I want to talk about a couple more of these beliefs because I think that it's important to dig deep into these things that are affecting how we function, how we see ourselves. It distorts our identity and it's affecting really how we live in the world, how we see the world. Because how the relationship ends, it really doesn't change how we see ourselves after the relationship. So sometimes we can get into this assumption that because maybe someone else, you know, in our minds was maybe strong enough to walk away, that somehow they are less damaged from the abuse. And I want to dive into these beliefs because I really see that this work of untangling and separating how we were treated and the things that we had to do to survive, tearing all of that apart from who we really are is the work that we all have. So, regardless of how the relationship ended or how you were connected to your abuser, a lot of these truths hold fast for all of us. This is all the work that we have to do. And the reason for that is, and I said this last time, and I want to stress this so much that the healing work from this type of abuse, when we talk about deep psychological and emotional abuse, when we talk about narcissistic abuse, it takes a long time to heal from those things because what was harmed is is not it's abuse is never surface level. It's not like you just got your feelings hurt. It's not like we were just a little bit confused. This type of abuse is a full-on attack against our sense of reality, our sense of identity, and very much our safety. And that attack is foundational to our humanity. It goes deep into our identity and it strips us, it's it strips us very much of our humanity. Our minds start to form and hold beliefs about ourselves because it we base it on how we're treated and how we had to survive. And so that when that gets into our minds, it actually seeps into our bodies. And eventually we fall into this ideology of saying, well, this is just how I am. Because somewhere along the way, we will succumb to the lies and we'll feel that hopelessness for change. So this series is about untangling these lies, and it's about shifting into being you without the shame and the fear. So remember, healing is never just moving on. We're not moving on. We are actually relearning how to trust our own thoughts and to know what thoughts are ours and what thoughts are not. For many of us, we are rebuilding a sense of self from the ground up. We have to teach our bodies that we're no longer in danger. So even after the abuse ends, even after we're away from it, and again, regardless of how that happens, somewhere our body still believes that we are in danger. This is not a mindset shift. This is a full system recalibration. It's about brain, body, and identity and shifting all of that into being you. That's why I want to attack this head on. I need you to know that you are not broken, you're not damaged, it is not hopeless. And more importantly, I really want you to know you're not crazy. And we don't have to continue in the torment that follows us even after the abuse ends. So before we dive in this week, just like last time, I want to take a moment. Let's pause and take a deep breath. Because a lot of this can feel really deep and painful for some of us, and that's okay. I want to be gentle and kind to you on this journey. Sometimes it can feel like we're stuck, it can feel like we're drowning and like we just can't help it. It won't go away. But I want you to know that it is possible to rewire your brain and change that lens through which we see ourselves and the world around us. This isn't about changing you. You're just cleaning up the lens that you've been looking through. Who you truly are has been hidden behind this lens that's been distorted and covered in shame. And the rewiring process is, in a sense, like just cleaning up the lens and getting that clearer picture of the truth of you. So let's dive into these next two beliefs that I want to talk about today. And again, I know that there's so much more, but we're going to take these just a couple at a time. I don't want to overwhelm anyone. And if at any time any of this feels like it's too much, that's okay. You hit pause and come back to this another time. Because these are not just lies that we believe, these are wounds that we carry deep inside. And sometimes it may just be a little too much to unpack today. So the first belief that I want to attack is this one, I'm not good enough. And this one creeps in because we never really can seem to be exactly what would make our abuser happy. We can't be what they want us to be. We can't be what they need us to be, apparently. And there is no way to really truly make them happy all the time. Because what they want from us varies from day to day based on how they feel. So it has nothing to do with how we perform or how we show up. And we're constantly feeling like we failed. Because even if it's a good day, it doesn't last. And so somewhere along the way, our brains will fill in the gap to think I'm not good enough. Because if I were better, or if I could just get it right, or if I just, if I would just quit failing at this, if I could just, and somewhere it deepens into this belief that there's something inherently wrong with us. This belief can be a little bit tricky to recognize because we may have zero capacity to see any good in ourselves, or we may see ourselves as somewhat good, but not really good enough. This one can be very loud at times, and then sometimes it can be like this little nagging torment pulling in our minds. So let's talk about some ways that it shows up and what it looks like in our life. So one way is that we find ourselves constantly monitoring, monitoring ourselves. So this is not just self-awareness, but this is this is like worrying about what others will think of us. Sometimes we can worry about that before we even get into a room or a situation with other people. It's almost like a panic that comes over us of what will people think. And so we constantly are under this monitoring of ourselves to make sure that we are saying things right, that I'm standing right or I'm sitting right, I'm moving my hands right, and we feel self-conscious about all of it. So we're constantly in that monitoring mode. Another way that this can show up is overthinking what we say after a conversation. So, and this may be for a few hours after a conversation ends or an interaction with someone, and it can last sometimes up to days. And it can be absolutely tormenting to some of us. We beat ourselves up over things we should have said or didn't, the things that we felt like, oh God, that was so stupid. Why did I say that? Or why did I react that way? So we overthink it. Again, it's part of that monitoring. So we're overthinking the conversation and we play it in our minds over and over and over again, and we critique ourselves on what we should have done and how we could have handled that. We also will many times go back to people after a conversation and we'll seek their approval. Are you okay? Did I say anything wrong? I'm so sorry that I said this. I felt like I shouldn't have said that. That's that overthinking. That's that I'm not good enough. Another way that this can show up is when we feel like we have to prove our worth. So this is when we have zero boundaries. So we're always saying yes. We overextend ourselves. We tend to be that person that goes overboard to accommodate everyone else without any regard for our own needs, even to the point of exhaustion and feeling guilty when we rest or play. And this is not necessarily in work because sometimes I think we can attribute that to just our work life, but this can be true in relationships as well. It's when we overextend ourselves to help everyone, even to our own detriment. And, you know, a friend of mine, we had a conversation about this one time. And I remember in when I was coming to this realization about myself, the best way that I could describe it to her of how I felt was I felt like if I were standing next to someone and they were standing on my foot, and it could be an excruciating pain. But if they were okay with kind of where they were at, then I would never mention that they were standing on my foot, no matter how much it hurt me, because I didn't want to upset the other person. I had zero boundaries. It's okay, it's okay for you to run all over me. That's how deep this one can go. And it can even bleed over into our parenting if we get to the place that we overextend and we struggle to feed our own soul before trying to do everything and be everything for our kids. Because we can actually hold a guilt over not being a good enough parent. And that one, we all can fall into this trap of feeling like I could have done a better job with my parenting. But when it goes to a deep level, we have to really consider if it falls into this I'm not good enough belief. So look for it in many areas in your life. Another way that it can show up is when we expect failure in life. So this is when we are always expecting the worst, assuming that things will fall apart even before they do. It's this expectation of if it's in my life or it's for me, then it's it's going to fail and it's going to fall apart. Nothing ever works out for me. Another way that this can show up is when we fall into a comparison to others around us, not in a way that is this form of jealousy so much as it's this feeling that I'm comparing myself to someone else who seems to have it all together. Like somehow we feel like they've got life figured out and I don't. And we feel like if I could just figure out what it is that makes them have this understanding of life, or if if I could figure out how to fix myself so that people liked me like they like them, you know, it's that thing that we can compare ourselves even to say, I wish I could be more like them, but I'm too stupid, I'm too damaged, I'm too messed up to be as good as them. It's that kind of comparison. And that's a dangerous place to be. And one other way that this can show up is when we never quite feel really settled in who we are. And it's when we get to the place of being highly critical of ourselves. And it's not just physically, but we actually can be um very cynical towards ourselves and how we are emotionally, relationally, um, how we show up. We we tend to beat ourselves up a lot, and we just feel like everything about us is wrong. That's because of that belief, I'm not good enough. So it's never just about one part of ourselves, it really starts to seep into this belief about everything about us. Here's a point that I want to stress about this. When we're holding this belief, so remember I said that we're looking at ourselves through a lens mentally. You can see, you know, in your in your mind, kind of when you're looking at everything about you, it's uh it's like looking through a lens, but this lens is distorted and it's covered in shame. And uh here's what I want to tell you about shame because that's where this one gets so covered. I really think this belief is one that is very seeped with shame. So shame is that voice that when we mess up, instead of saying, Oh, I made a mistake, shame is the voice that says, I am the mistake. There's a big difference in the two. And so somewhere along the way, with this belief, if it's embedded in our subconscious, the shame attached to it can be so strong. And instead of seeing things that we do, if we're fumbling one day just because, you know, my hands just can't seem to hold on to anything. And those things happen. They happen to all of us. But what happens to those of us who hold this belief is it's so seeped in shame that we tend to say, that's just great. This is typical of me. I am such a screw up. And it becomes the I am statement. I am ugly, I am a failure, I am a horrible person. And that's the voice of shame. That means that somewhere the lens through which we see ourselves is distorted and it's covered in that shame. No one is perfect, none of us are. We all mess up, we all say the wrong thing, we all do the wrong thing, we all do it. I've had so many moments that I've just plain o screwed up. I've screwed a lot of things up. But when we hold this belief, the the way that those things show up in our life is it causes us to see it as part of our identity and not our behavior. So somewhere we need to shift out of the belief that I am not good enough. That it's shifting this belief that there's something inherently wrong with us because that belief was your mind filling in the gap in the midst of this abuse, trying to survive. And trying to measure up to a picture that shifted and changed all the time. You could never measure up in that environment. You were being trained in an environment that set you up to fail. It's not you, it was the environment. So just like I talked about last week, when we start to shift these beliefs, our minds are geared for confirmation bias. So it's going to look for things that confirm the beliefs that we hold. It's almost like having blinders on. And it becomes the only thing that we can see. So what we need to do is gently expand what our mind sees, what our mind observes, what our mind has the capacity to observe. So we're just becoming these objective observers in life. And what we need is evidence. Sometimes for those of us that have this type of abuse, we need evidence to then start building the affirmations and shifting these beliefs. And when we start finding that evidence, it opens up possibilities for other things than what I've believed about myself. I start to see other possibilities, which means I'm creating new neural pathways and I'm shifting, and now I can start to untangle the lie from the truth of who I am. So just like last week, we talked about getting an evidence journal. And, you know, you can make this fun, you can make it detective mode. If you are into that, by all means, make it however is something that has your personality or expresses something about you. Because this is not a contest. You're not comparing this to someone else. It doesn't have to measure up to anything. This is just something for you. So what I want you to do is look back, and you can look back over the last week, few days, even a month, however, it works for you. And remember, when you're looking back, we're gonna take a deep breath and we're gonna purpose that this is without criticism. We're not looking back with judgment and shame, we're just observing. So we're gonna look back, take a deep breath, and look for evidence where, and it could be simple things. Maybe you can say, I ate when I was hungry instead of ignoring it. It can be something as simple as, you know, I I gave myself a moment to pause instead of just pushing through. It can even be as simple as I let myself cry without telling myself that I was being dramatic. It can be something like I acknowledged my own feelings instead of minimizing them. Or maybe you're practicing boundaries and you can say, I said no. Even if I felt guilty about it, I said no. That's a that's a huge step. And in boundaries, you can even, you know, if it's if it's something that you say yes to, maybe acknowledging that you take a pause before you agree to something. That's evidence of you giving yourself space and having boundaries, because remember, I'm not enough is about proving, and so we don't have boundaries. So look for ways that you can put boundaries in place, even if it's just in the pause for a moment, to give yourself that minute to think, because you're changing, we're changing and shifting these behaviors. Another thing that you can do on this one, and it doesn't matter if you have one thing on your list from the last month or 500 things, it doesn't matter because this is not a contest. But if you do nothing else but write on your list, I'm trying. Even when it feels hard, that is huge progress. Because I need you to see that every effort that you put in is worth the effort because you are trying and you are good enough. And if you're starting to feel a little bit of a shift in this, your evidence may even look like I'm accepting or I'm learning who I am without needing the approval from anyone else. Maybe it's something like I don't agree with every negative thought about myself anymore. Those are huge, huge steps. And remember, this is merely investigative. No judgment, no shame. Your brain just needs something evidential to hold on to to start to shift this belief and open the possibility that you were being trained in an environment where it wasn't safe to show up as you. And that this belief is not the truth of you. So make this a regular practice of looking back every so often, looking for that evidence, and then creating that possibility in your mind. And then you can make affirmations based on those truths that you find, and slowly we can start to untangle the lies that are choking out our very own truth. So let's take a look at another belief. And this one can be kind of heavy. So let's take a deep breath because now I want to talk about this belief, I don't belong. This one is real important to name because this belief, I don't belong, is not just a thought. I don't belong is like a felt experience. We feel it not just in our mind, but in our body, and it affects how you move through the world. This comes because in these in these types of relationships, in this type of abuse, with that with that deep psychological and emotional abuse, when we're with that abuser, there is, and I don't know the correct term for it. What I call it is a push-pull. It's where they are accepting and rejecting you all at the same time. It can be in the same moment, it can be in the same day, it can be in the same week. But somewhere their acceptance of you is followed by a rejection. And the rejection is somewhere followed by an acceptance. And it doesn't matter how long the span of time from the acceptance to the rejection, rejection is not just something that people do, it's something that holds in our body. It is like a physical punch to the body, and we can have long-term physical effects from it. Even if the rejection is something that is subtle, but especially if it's been repeated over time, your system doesn't just remember it, your system, your whole body will actually organize around it. You may have heard, you know, when you have a physical injury of some sort, your body creates what's called muscle memory. And so sometimes when we have stresses, that muscle memory, that wherever that old wound is will kind of flare up. So it works the same way with rejection. This is why your entire body will feel the rejection and that belief, I don't belong, becomes a full body experience because it's a muscle memory. So here's some ways that this one can show up in our lives. When we feel like belonging is conditional. So this is when we can accept that someone likes us, we can accept that people even love us. But somewhere, because our body is expecting the rejection to come, we we start to convince ourselves, I know that you love me, but it's because you don't know me well enough. But when you get to know me better, you won't love me anymore. We tell ourselves that the other person is a really good person and that's why they love us, or that's why they accept us, or that's why they like us. But eventually they'll see that we don't belong with them. And so there's this expectation for it to come. So belonging feels conditional, and we keep trying to earn it with other people because we don't want them to see something that they'll then reject us. Another way that it can show up is we justify our needs. So if I have a need, I will find myself overexplaining the entire history of why I have this need, where it stems from, and why I can't help it that I have this need. When we fall into that pattern, it's because somewhere we have been trained and our minds fill in the gap that we're the only ones with this need because it's such an inconvenience to those around us. Other people don't suffer like this and they won't understand it, and they may reject us. Another way that this can show up is you can be in the room with people, maybe even laughing and enjoying the time that you're with them, but somewhere you feel completely disconnected. It's like there's a layer or a wall between you and other people, even in the same room. So you you feel like you're the outsider always looking in at others, like you don't belong in that space, like they're in a different space than you, even in the same room. Another way that this can show up is when we make ourselves small around other people. So we shrink, we silence, we try to blend into the background somehow, because somewhere we just want to belong, and belonging may feel like just being part of the wallpaper in somebody else's room because we don't see that we're really like them and we don't belong in the same room as them. So we make ourselves small just so that we can stay. Another way that this can show up is in how we see other people. So we become hyper-aware of other people's feelings. We can see the shift in tone. Um, we recognize mannerisms, facial expressions, even body language. And so every negative tone or shift that we see, we internalize that through the lens of I don't belong to mean that they're not okay with our presence there. And so when we see that negative shift, we immediately internalize that to go, I don't belong here. They're upset with me, they don't want me around anymore. Another way that this can show up is um we find ourselves being completely exhausted after being around other people. And that's because when we're around other people, because you know, I said this is a full body experience, it's because our entire bodies have been scanning and monitoring and adjusting, trying to fit in the entire time we've been around other people. And so it just, it's just exhausting to our entire system. And so we find ourselves completely depleted just trying to be around other people. The other way that this can show up is when we feel like there's no real place for us. We never really feel at home anywhere. And we feel like everywhere we go, we have to earn our space in the world. And we never quite feel settled, even in our own homes. It just doesn't feel like home. We feel like we're kind of out of place and we keep searching for the place that we can finally like relax and just be at home, but we never really find that. We can't seem to settle in to home, we can't seem to settle into a community, we can't seem to settle into a place at work. Settling in is we just can't, we just can't seem to do it. There's no real place for us in the world. We constantly feel the need to earn that space. Here's what I want to tell you about belonging. The first thing is if this one hits home for you, there is a ton to unpack here. This is not something that we can just easily unpack, and it doesn't just shift, you know, one time and you're done. This one has so many layers, and it will be layers that fall in between layers of other work that we do. This one took me years. So if this one hits home for you, I would highly encourage research Brene Brown's work on belonging. She has so many resources, and her research and work on this topic alone is absolutely phenomenal. I cannot recommend it enough. She has podcasts where she talks about belonging, she has books that she's written that talk about belonging, a lot of her own personal testimony about belonging and the work that she's done. It is incredible. So if this one hits home for you, that is an excellent resource. I cannot recommend her enough on that. Secondly, I want to give you this one core truth to start your work in this area. And I want to give you this to hold on to. And then I found the place that I did belong. I need you to know when I say that you don't belong everywhere, the first place I need you to recognize is that you never, never did belong in that abuse. You did not belong in an environment where you were not loved and cherished and adored simply for you. You did not belong in a place where you were not safe. You absolutely belong somewhere else. We just need to start the rewiring of this belief and let you be you so that you can find your tribe and find the place that is where you are safe and you are loved and where you can belong. So we're gonna go back into our evidence journal. We're gonna look back objectively. Remember, we're just objective observers. You may need to start your journal in another couple of weeks and let this one sit with you for a little while. Maybe do a little bit of research on belonging. That's okay. It's perfectly okay. Take your time because this is your journey. It's not about anyone else. This is for you. But somewhere when you're ready, let's give our minds some evidence to hold on to as we start to shift this belief. So here are some things that you can look for. Look for things that are like times when you feel like you're on the outside, but I'm still here. When you can tell yourself, I'm not, I still feel like I'm kind of on the outside, but I'm staying and I'm still here. Times when you feel like I didn't strive to earn my place in this moment, any moment, and it can be so small in time, but any moment when you just let your guard down and you didn't strive to be in that moment, record that. That's for you. Anytime that you allow yourself to take up even a little bit more space, that's evidence for you that you belong in that space. Write that down. Anytime that you felt the need to change and become something else just to be accepted, but you didn't give in to that and you didn't change. You didn't change yourself in the moment. Those are powerful, powerful pieces of evidence. Give your brain that evidence to hold on to. And if you need to give yourself one little piece of evidence of a sure place where you belong, I encourage you write down that you belong right here. You belong right here with me because we're in this together. I know this one, I know this work. Over time, and in your own research, you can find other ways that show your body that you belong. Keep gathering the proof that you belong, keep expanding and pushing your mind to clean that lens. Attacking these beliefs is the biggest part of healing. We can leave abuse in our past, but it somehow it lingers in our minds and in our bodies. And having the language to define what's happening goes so far to make us feel less crazy and so much more hopeful. And when we have hope, there's there's a reason to keep going. Because this work is such a deep work. This is this is so deep, but it's the kind of work that changes everything. We don't have to live quietly suffering and striving and hiding. Some of us, I know, have no idea who we are apart from the abuse and what we were told about who we are. And it's so scary to step out and to shift these beliefs that have anchored so deep into the very fiber of our being. So please be kind to yourself. We are not in competition with each other. You are not in competition with anyone. This is not a race to the finish line. This is you blooming and becoming. We cannot rush the seed to bloom. We cannot force the flower to open. So many of us have not had gentleness and kindness. So start with giving that to yourself regardless of what anyone else does. As always, I am here for you. I want this place to be a safe place where we can explore what it means to be free, what it means to be you, to be whole and feel alive and connected. I don't have all the answers. I I will never, never assume that I know the answer. But I do know that it's possible to be completely free of the torment. Because when I left the abuse, the torment followed. I spent years in therapy, I spent years doing research, I spent years doing my own work, reading and studying. I was so dogmatic that I did not want anyone else to have control over me again. I was so dogmatic that I was done being tormented. And I I know that it's possible. I know that it is because I've done it. I've done so much work. I've not arrived. There is no arriving at healing. It's it's this beautiful work of becoming, of becoming who we were created to be. And that is my desire for you. So if anything that I have shared with you resonates, hold fast. Do your own work, do your own research, dig a little deeper. And if it doesn't, that's okay. Do what works for you. But do it for you and know that you are safe and you are loved. And always, I will always, always end with this. Because if you know this kind of torment, if you have seen the darkness that I have seen, I need you to know that I see you and I believe you. Thank you so much for listening today. And I hope that you felt the love and the encouragement that's being sent to you. Feel free to share this podcast and follow us so that you'll get notifications when we release new episodes. And until we meet again, dear friend, be kind, be courageous in truth. Love yourself as deeply as you would a close friend. And keep leaning in to the joy and the beauty of discovering what it means to be authentic, whole, and wildly hurt.